"You have defeated the guardian of the 0th floor of the Primordial Pagoda. You have been rewarded with an upgrade in your Gamer Physique. As a result of the Gamer Physique advancing to level 2, a new perk was unlocked in the status screen."
Valerius decided to check it out.
"Status."
Upon calling for his status screen, a semi-transparent screen immediately popped up in his vision.
Name: Valerius J. Khaleji
Race: Human
Age: 16
Stage: Lv 3 Spirit Warrior
Exp Required to Lv Up: 0/100
Special Spiritual Physique: Gamer Physique (Lv:2)
Bloodline: None
HP: 2
STR: 9
AGT: 3
STA: 6
Soul power Capacity: 30 units
Stat Points: 3
"Wow, I'm even more like a character in a game now."
Valerius was overjoyed as the perks of his level 2 Gamer Physique meant that he could defy common logic and level up using EXP.
In most games and novels, experience points could be easily accumulated through battles, achievements, or quests.
"Is it the same for me?" Valerius wondered. "Well, won't I find out when I understand it fully?" he thought next.
He focused his gaze on a certain point in the status screen. As a result of his actions, a tiny screen opened up in the corner of his vision, barely hindering his vision. As he focused on it, it was brought to the center of his field of vision and magnified. This screen detailed everything about the new functions of his special physique, including the various ways to accumulate EXP and its usage.
[EXP can be earned by slaying other entities. It can also be earned by playing a pivotal role in major events or completing hidden quests related to the Nine Divinities. Sometimes the quest book might issue quests with EXP as the reward. Completing such quests can become another source of EXP.]
Two of the four methods of earning EXP were self-explanatory.
Valerius tried to make sense of the other two himself.
The term "Nine Divinities" most likely referred to possessors of the nine divine spiritual physiques. He inferred that by interfering in their lives and altering their fate for better or worse, he could complete hidden quests and earn rewards, which may include EXP.
Talking about the last method of accumulating EXP, Valerius felt uncertain about what qualified as a Major event.
Did it refer to an event of significance in the broader context of the world or merely within the confines of his own life?
The answer to this would determine the ease or difficulty of gaining EXP in this manner. If it was a matter of global significance, it would naturally be more challenging. Conversely, if it pertained only to his personal experiences, it might prove to be a simpler task.
For the time being, the surest way he could earn EXP was by slaying other entities. Monsters, beasts, and even humans could be counted as other entities.
'Slaying beasts for EXP in low-level hunting zones seems like my best bet,' Valerius thought.
The forest surrounding the wizard community was divided into low-level and high-level hunting zones.
The main purpose of these zones was to provide a suitable environment for training and hunting to the members of the wizard community.
The zones were made possible with the help of barriers.
These barriers were able to restrict entry based on one's level.
For example, spirit warriors and lowest-ranked wizards could enter low-level hunting zones, but anyone above or below that level, such as mortals or mid to high-rank wizards, couldn't enter these zones as the barriers surrounding them would restrict their entry.
Similarly, only mid-rank to high-rank wizards could enter high-level hunting zones due to the presence of the barrier.
Not to mention, these barriers not only served to protect the less experienced from inadvertently wandering into hazardous areas where they would die without knowing what killed them, but they also ensured a balanced ecosystem within the forest.
For Valerius, the presence of these barriers was also quite helpful.
It was mainly because of the barriers that he didn't need to worry about being assassinated by beings way above his league while hunting in low-level zones.
That's the reason why he decided to go hunt there in the first place.
'The forest has many low-level zones. Which one is the most suitable for me?' He wondered.
Valerius was deep in contemplation when a knock on the door sounded. It was followed by a voice that was pleasant to hear.
"Master, may I enter? I bring good news," A voice called out gently. The voice came from outside the room.
Hearing the words, Valerius recognized it was Anna. Although today was the first time they'd met, he had become familiar with her voice.
"Please, come in," Valerius invited her in without any further ado.
Anna entered the room before Valerius asked, "So, what's the good news? It wouldn't happen to be about the blue crystal, would it?"
"You've guessed it!" Anna exclaimed. "I've unraveled how you can utilize the blue crystal effectively."
"Ever since you introduced yourself as an inquisitor and an appraiser, I knew you would be quite good at getting to the bottom of things and finding answers to perplexing questions, but I didn't expect you to be so good at it. Your performance has exceeded my expectations," Valerius praised her.
Anna blushed hearing his remark, then modestly said, "You flatter me."
Straight after, she moved to the main point of the talk, sharing her experience and discovery with him.
In the past few hours, she experimented with the blue crystal in various ways. After several failures, she discovered that the crystal, when it comes into contact with water, exhibits fascinating properties. When she had carefully poured a droplet on it, a minute fraction of its energy transferred to the water droplet, causing it to crystallize.
This crystal contained a hint of the blue crystal's energy. It was reasonable to think that it should be able to affect soul power capacity no matter how insignificantly.
When she ingested it, nothing happened, causing her to be confused, but she didn't remain bewildered for wrong. She was able to connect the dot and conclude that a human body couldn't naturally digest it to increase soul power capacity. A trigger was needed.
The energy absorption technique of her house, which was typically used for absorbing energy from nature for faster recovery of soul power in battle, proved to be the necessary trigger.
When she executed it, the crystalized water droplet sitting in her stomach was stripped of its content and reduced to its normal appearance. The extracted energy was used to increase her soul power capacity by a very tiny amount.
"After using the signature technique of my house to digest the crystallized water droplet, I found that my soul capacity has increased by a marginal amount. On a scale of 0 to 10, it should be by 0.1 units," Anna explained.
"Only two things need to be done for the blue crystal with extraordinary capacity to become universally applicable. The first is to transform the vast amount of energy inside it into smaller bodies of water. Then, using the signature Energy Absorption Technique of the House Charlotte, one can absorb the energy little by little from the crystallized droplets to increase their soul power capacity, and doing so would come without risk," she elaborated. She was being so thorough because she didn't want to hide anything from him.
Valerius absorbed her explanation and felt awed. Absorbing the blue crystal directly would cause a massive influx of energy, potentially resulting in the body exploding. But using Anna's method, the introduction of soul power capacity enhancing energy could be controlled and used efficiently.
Most impressively, she had discovered this in mere hours. Considering her age, it was quite an achievement.
Valerius was thoroughly impressed with her.
"You said the signature technique of your house would be needed for this method to work. Anna, I realize this might be asking a lot, but would you be willing to teach it to me?" Valerius asked.
"You're my master. Who else would I share what's mine with, if not you?" she said with a smile that warmed Valerius's heart.
She then proceeded to show that she meant her words as she really taught the signature technique of her household to him.
It was clear from her behavior that she genuinely didn't mind sharing her things with him. Valerius hadn't met a good person like her in a long time. Only his parents were this good to him.
"Thank you. I will return this favor in the future," Valerius said to her. Valerius, when he really meant it, would only use a few words. Since Anna had done him a favor, there was no doubt he would repay her tenfold.
The signature Energy Absorption Technique of the House Charlotte was called Energy Siphoning.
The main purpose of this technique was to allow the practitioner to rapidly regenerate their soul power. In an environment thick with soul power, it triples the natural regeneration rate. Soul power wasn't the only thing one could absorb with this technique. It worked on almost every type of energy.
There were prerequisites for using this skill. Energy should be present in nature or in the item one was in contact with at the time of using this skill, or else it wouldn't work.
It was made with combat in mind. This technique could also be used to siphon energy from others, making it quite a versatile and somewhat dangerous technique. However, it was quite hard to pull off as you had to be in contact with your opponent.
"Help me out?" Valerius said.
"Sure," Anna replied.
With Anna's help, Valerius quickly transferred the energy inside the blue crystal into dozens of droplets of water, which then crystallized.
Now, all he needed to do to improve his soul power capacity was absorb these crystallized droplets.
Picking up a crystallized droplet, Valerius started practicing the Energy Siphoning Technique.
"It's time to improve," he thought.
In his situation, advancing to the next level of the Spirit Warrior stage required meeting three prerequisites: learning the Internal Vision and Soul Manipulation Technique, improving his soul power capacity to 40 units, and having a sturdy body.
His body was sturdy enough. He needed to improve his soul power capacity by ten points at the minimum and learn the Internal Vision and Soul Manipulation Technique before he could attempt a breakthrough to the next level.
'Using the method Anna taught me, I should meet another requirement in no time,' he thought.
However, he failed to execute the technique correctly, and his expression crumbled as if he had made the worst mistake in his life.
"What's wrong?" Anna asked, noticing the unchanged form of the crystallized droplet.
'She didn't notice? Maybe it was silent.' he thought without making any change in his expression, keeping a straight face.
"I failed to execute the technique properly. It's harder than I thought," Valerius said. He felt embarrassed by his failure, and his embarrassment was visible.
"Don't feel embarrassed. It's not something that can be learned after hearing about it once. This technique relies less on comprehension and more on practice. Only through repeatedly practicing it for weeks can you get it right. It took me three weeks, and I am considered a genius by my father," Anna reassured him.
"I see," Valerius said, then told her, "Don't waste your time here. You should go and rest."
Anna left, and Valerius shifted his entire focus to practicing the Energy Siphoning Technique.
He carefully tried to breathe in accordance with the Energy Siphoning Method. Strands of soul power escaped his spirit veins and circulated in his body, meeting in the center of his abdomen, swirling and twirling around one another, slowly transforming into a rapidly spinning mass. However, he messed up the breathing pattern. Immediately, the soul power inside his body went out of control, and a loud, heaven-shaking fart rang out.
PAAAAAaaaaa!
Valerius looked left and right. Not a single soul was present in his vicinity. No one had witnessed his embarrassment. Otherwise, he wouldn't know how to walk with his head held high.
'Failing to execute it results in quite embarrassing side effects. I need to be careful when using it in public or else I will become the butt of every joke," he thought.
He didn't let failure hold him down and continued practicing.
The technique consisted of an odd breathing rhythm, with dozens of changes that needed to be executed in quick succession. His early attempts caused the spirit energy to escape into his body from his spirit veins and go into turmoil. The first time was silent, so Anna hadn't heard it. The second time, he had gotten a bit better at the technique, so the side effects were even stronger. But when it happened, he was alone, and he got out of it without being embarrassed to the core.
Anyways, as Anna said, only repeated practice would bring him closer to mastering it.
After he failed for the tenth time, a notification popped up in his vision.
[You have practiced the Energy Siphoning Skill ten times and gained +1 proficiency in it. Gain three points of proficiency in this skill to learn it.]
He had to practice it 100 times to fully master it.
Unlike what Anna had said, he grasped it when the sky had barely turned dark.
According to Anna, an ordinary person would need months of practice to become proficient with the Energy Siphoning Technique, but Valerius had done it in mere hours, and that also included the time it took to restore his soul power to the maximum each time he spent a portion of it. He was being so cautious because he had yet to face the side effects of using the rune.
If Anna had been there to witness it, she would have been shocked.
'I was able to master this technique so easily; it's a secret perk of having the Gamer Physique. Looks like the descriptions issued aren't always entirely correct,' Valerius thought to himself. 'Let's get back to what I was doing.'
This time when he executed the technique, he was able to perform the odd breathing methods successfully, and a vortex formed in the pit of his stomach. This vortex exerted an attractive force, pulling at the energy inside the crystallized droplet. Soon, this energy was pulled into his body.
[Your soul power capacity has increased.]
This notification popped up right after. His soul power capacity had increased by 0.1 units. If Valerius had internal vision, he would have noticed that the size of his level 1 spirit vein had increased by a hair's breadth.
He looked at the remaining dozens of crystallized droplets with great hunger in his eyes and absorbed them one by one. By the end of it, his soul power capacity had increased by 5 whole points. His soul power capacity had reached 35 points.
"A lot of time has passed."
He said after he suddenly looked out the window and saw no sign of the sun. Instead, there was a moon in the sky.
Night has arrived.
Intriguingly, despite the arrival of night, darkness hadn't engulfed the land completely.
It's because bathed in the moonlight, the silver trees of the forest emitted a faint glow. Their collective glow, though subtle, was enough to illuminate nearly the entire Silver Moon Forest in an otherworldly radiance.
The trees fashioned into houses within the community, however, remained dark. It was obvious that their natural ability to glow under the light of the sun reflected by the moon was tampered with.
Anyways, because of how bright it was, it presented a suitable environment for a human to hunt effectively in the forest even at night.
'Others might do it, but hunting in the forest at night isn't good for me. I should wait.'
Noticing it was already night, Valerius postponed his hunting trip to the training grounds of the wizard community until early in the morning.
This decision was based on one key reason: the beasts of the forests were more active at night, increasing the risk of encountering aggressive predators in quick succession, a risk he, a mere spirit warrior, couldn't afford to take.
'Since I'm going to go hunting first thing in the morning, I should put my consumables to good use.'
Thinking so, Valerius tossed the two red crystals into his mouth. Considering his plans, it was only right to improve his strength as much as he could.
The red crystals turned into a jelly-like substance upon contact with his saliva and slid down his throat easily. As the digestion began, his body suddenly heated up, but it didn't feel bad. Instead, it was the same feeling as when you eat fish in winter. Quite refreshing and comforting, as if embraced by one's mother.
After a while, his temperature dropped, returning to normal. The digestion was successful. As a result, a change had taken place in his physique. The change was mentioned in the status screen. Viewing the change, Valerius felt delighted.
[Hp bar +3]
[Total amount of Hp: 5/5]
His HP bar had permanently increased by 3 points. Now it was comparable to an average Serphian.
It meant that he would die if he was beheaded or stabbed in the heart, but he wouldn't be reduced to the brink of death from injuries like minor bleeding.
'The effect of just two red crystals was so profound. What if I had dozens of them? Sadly, I can't challenge the new floor until after I become a wizard.'
Although it appeared that he had nothing to do, Valerius didn't lie down on his bed to rest, as he actually still had something left to do. He had to oversee the feeding process of the magic artifact to get the answer to his question.
He waited until midnight, and then it began. Something squirmed under his skin like a worm, as if in search of something. Valerius felt disturbed but he held it in and carefully felt what he was experiencing.
The sensation was eerie and disconcerting.
The good thing was that it wasn't painful.
The off-putting sensation didn't last for long.
It went away after a couple of seconds.
[Feeding time of The Rune of Swiftness has begun. -5 SP.]
This notification sounded in his ears as the Rune of Swiftness sucked a mouthful of his soul power out of his spirit veins and then it stopped squirming as if satisfied.
Right after, another notification rang out.
[The feeding has ended.]
At the end of it, Valerius wore a thoughtful expression.
Five units of soul power was the cost of using the Rune of Swiftness for 1 second. His soul power capacity was currently maxed at 35 units. He could use it to double his agility for 7 seconds at most in one day.
'It's my 7-second trump card,' he thought smilingly.
It should be noted that the air of the wizard community was dense with soul power. He didn't need to rely on his new technique. As he took deep breaths in, his soul power was rapidly restored.